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Larger discussion needed on viruses that can help and harm, expert says

The ratio of scientists to journalists at the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is about 10 to 1. The conference is in Vancouver from Feb. 16 to 20.

Photograph by: Jason Payne
, PNG

VANCOUVER — The world needs to establish a mechanism for dealing with dual-use advances — such as mutant flu viruses — that have the potential to be both misused by terrorists and put to good use, says the editor of one of the world's top science journals.

"The supreme court of decision-making on these things should not be me, but should be some much more effective screening body," Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, told reporters here Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was responding to news from Geneva that a high-level meeting of flu and biosecurity experts has recommended that two controversial papers on altered H5N1 flu viruses be published in full at some point — but not until the risks of publication have been better addressed.

"There is a preference from a public-health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies. However, there are significant public concerns surrounding this research that should first be addressed," said Keiji Fukuda, the assistant director general for health security and environment at the World Health Organization, which convened the Geneva meeting.

The meeting was called to break a deadlock between scientists, who have studied the mutations needed to make H5N1 bird flu transmit between mammals, and the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which wanted the work censored before it was published in scientific journals.

Biosecurity experts fear the mutated viruses created independently by scientists in the Netherlands and the United States might escape or fall into the wrong hands and spark a deadly pandemic. Flu experts say the information needs to be made public as it could lead to better understanding the flu and development of surveillance systems and vaccines to prevent outbreaks.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said due to the biosecurity fears, "there must be a much fuller discussion of risk and benefits of research in this area and risks of virus, itself."

"My surprise is that they actually did reach a decision, we didn't think that was going happen today," Alberts told reporters at a hastily called news conference to comment on the decision.

Alberts said he is "not completely clear about what the decision means, because it is qualified."

But he said he and his counterpart at the British journal Nature will now scrap their plans to publish redacted versions of the two flu studies in mid-March.

"Certainly that is now not going to happen," Alberts said.

He said he hopes the concerns over the flu papers will prompt WHO and the world's governments to come up with an international mechanism for dealing with advances with the potential for both sinister and beneficial uses.

"As everyone knows, they could have worked on it for the last five years and they did not," Alberts said. "In fact, we were surprised and disappointed that nothing had been done until this so-called emergency forced everyone into action."